


stay down, supine, stay down

by sungazer



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Complicated Relationships, M/M, Working it Out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27754150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sungazer/pseuds/sungazer
Summary: There are snowflakes melting in Zagreus’ hair.
Relationships: Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 247





	stay down, supine, stay down

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I beat the Hades boss fight earlier on in my playthrough than my skill merited because of a fluke set of boons, then naturally did not manage to escape again for about 20-25 more runs. All the characters were ultra mad at Zag the whole time, it felt like he was never going to see Persephone again, I barely had nectar to give anyone, and it all became very miserable. This fic is based on that :)  
> 2\. I may have fuxxked up the lore because I only play this game in a fugue state and don't retain any information, just squint and it will be fine  
> 3\. Title is from "The Estuary" by Vijay Seshadri

There are snowflakes melting in Zagreus’ hair. The arched gate of Persephone’s garden casts a dull, horseshoe shaped shadow around him, waning like a moon.

Thanatos kneels, turns Zagreus’ lolled head towards him with a palm laid flat against his cheek. Feels his rapidly cooling skin, the itch of lifeless grass beneath his knees. For a fleeting moment, he’s mostly glad Zagreus had the wherewithal to close his eyes. He glances up at Persephone, saying nothing, and lifts Zagreus as though he were weightless. Holds him in his arms like a sleeping child. Hypnos might laugh, but this isn’t his job, anyways, and after all, Zagreus is dead. Not napping. Categorically.

“Tell no one,” Persephone manages, desperate, in a rush.

“Of course,” Thanatos says stiffly, nodding. It's not like he has much contact with Olympus to begin with. He adjusts Zagreus’ weight, wishing she would turn away.

Persephone opens her mouth, then closes it. “Is he—is he happy?” she finally says.

Thanatos gives her a pained, guilty look. Knows at once, with a certainty that crushes him, that he cannot lie to her. “No,” he says. Realizes belatedly, as they stare at one another, that he was right about her eyes; startling green, Zagreus like a playing card folded in half. Then, with a great lump in his throat, with the River Styx calling to him like a siren: “I’m sorry.”

  
  


Thanatos can’t help it, being upset. 

When he finally returns to the House of Hades, everything has changed; rugs and columns, tables and flowers. Leave it to Zagreus to go messing with things that were perfectly fine to begin with. The decor, the colors, none of it suits the place. None of it fits.

Thanatos drops the new list of the dead off with Hypnos, prodding him awake from sleep. It’s awfully long, and Hypnos yawns just looking at it, but Thanatos hasn’t found the time to get back to the underworld in a while. War and all. _Natural causes_ , it says, next to the careful script of Zagreus’ name. Though his death seemed anything but natural, flayed and gutted like a fish. Thanatos blinks and shakes his head, willing away the imagery.

He approaches the desk, waits for Hades to dismiss him again. Catches a glimpse of Zagreus, disappearing down the hallway and into his room. His bare foot leaves a burn mark in the tile that smokes for a moment, then disappears. Another escape attempt, then. Once wasn’t enough.

“I see you did me the courtesy of retrieving my son,” Hades says, not looking up from his stack of parchment. His voice sounds as though it's coming from every direction at once.

Thanatos lowers his gaze to the stone floor. Says, “Yes.” Feels, suddenly, the ten ton weight of Hades’ eyes boring into the top of his head. Hypnos is snoring again. If Thanatos focuses hard enough, he can tell where Zagreus is; already nearing the lychgates of Asphodel. Tartarus must barely be a challenge by now.

“He is wasting your time,” Hades says, voice firm. “Do not let it happen again.”

Thanatos looks at the ornate trim of the desk where it meets the stone floor. Deferential, he bows his head. “Yes,” he says again.

  
  


“You win,” Zagreus concedes, leaning on his sword like a cane as he catches his breath. “Damn.”

“Naturally,” Thanatos says. He doesn’t know why he challenged Zagreus—he came here meaning to be angry, but it all went out of him on sight. The dare was the first thing that came tumbling out of his mouth, instead, and then he was betting a centaur heart on some sad, pathetic instinct.

“Wait—” Zagreus starts, smiling. All mischief. “Hold on, before you go. I’ve brought you something.”

“Zag, don’t.”

Zagreus frowns, faux-pouting. “Oh, come on.” He tosses the bottle of ambrosia, forcing Thanatos to catch it or let it shatter. 

It lands heavily in Thanatos’ hand, caught by the neck. He looks at it, then Zagreus. Elysium behind him, blue-green and glittering. “This is contraband.” No reaction. “If Meg sees…”

“Meg already hates me,” Zagreus says. He’s still bearing an inflamed, sinuous mark across his bicep from her whip. “I mean, it's quite literally in her job description, though I think she’d do it for free. So it doesn’t matter. Keep it, you know? Better you get caught with it than me.”

Thanatos should really go. Mortal souls are piling up, out there, pressing in on him like a paperweight. But he just pockets the bottle, watches Zagreus wipe Stygius against the fabric at his hip in a graceful sweep.

Zagreus catches him staring. “Are you that winded?” he says, anxious, and awkward, on the verge of a self conscious laugh. 

Thanatos shifts his weight, gut rolling uncomfortably. “Why are you doing this?” Can’t bring himself to specify what exactly _this_ is.

Zagreus looks at him, expression wide open. “Than.” He waits for a response, then barrels on when it doesn't come. “It's not like I want to leave you behind.”

“Then don’t,” Thanatos says, feeling like a child. “Just stay.”

“I can’t.”

“That’s not a real reason.”

“I just can’t.”

“Why not?”

Zagreus chews on the inside of his cheek, jaw working. “I can’t bear it.” His furrowed brow, a fit of blinking. “You don’t know what it's like.”

“ _You_ don’t know what it's like,” Thanatos says, bitter. “I’m not his son. I don’t get to shirk my duties. I don’t get to fall apart.”

Zagreus stakes Stygius in the soft dirt. “You have duties. I have to become someone I’m not.” He rakes a hand through his hair, dislodging bits of stone and ash. “I didn’t...I didn’t choose this.”

Thanatos levels Zagreus’ stare, irritated twice over. As if given the chance, he would have asked to spend eternity carting the soul of people’s loved ones away as they lay dying. “None of us choose.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

If he listens closely, Thanatos can hear the distant roaring of the crowd in the Stadium. Theseus must be showboating, again, vainglory and swaggering even when everyone’s seen his name come back through the paperwork a dozen times. Cause of death: _bludgeoned by shield, poisoned, bull rushed, struck by lightning_. He huffs, testy from the humidity. “Look Zagreus, you’ve gone far. Farther than anyone would have expected. And now it's time to walk away.”

“Will you try and stop me?”

“What?” Thanatos says, almost laughing.

“Will you try and stop me?”

“Could anyone stop you?” Thanatos says, tone trying for dry, but he lacks the trick of it.

Zagreus looks at him, suddenly serious, gaze like a cleaver coming down. “There are no others,” he says. _You sound like Icarus, that fool_ , Thanatos wants to tell him. “You are the only one.”

  
  


“Thanatos.” Nyx’s voice is quiet and clear, telling him to turn and face without saying it.

“Yes, mother?”

She sighs, lightly, and tilts her head as she looks him over. “Your duties...how are they? I’m not familiar with the mortal realm, of course, but I hear of its toils, nonetheless. Lord Hades says you’ve been busy of late.”

“War, again,” Thanatos says. “A rather terrible one.” In his head he holds a thousand images, all more gruesome than the last. “The Fates at work, I presume.”

“Lord Ares, a more likely culprit.” She waves her hand, batting the topic away. Just around the corner, Orpheus plucks halfheartedly at his lyre, discordant notes that nearly form a few chords. “Have you spoken to Zagreus?”

“Mother.”

Nyx doesn’t waver. “I am aiding him, as are others. You must know.”

Thanatos certainly didn’t. The Olympians’ involvement he suspected—he is no stranger to the joy they take in meddling—but Nyx? “You would go behind Lord Hades’ back?”

“I act openly.”

“We are sworn to serve the House.”

“And I am serving the House, in my own way. Zagreus and his father could not continue on their contentious path.” Nyx frowns, and Thanatos suddenly gets the impression that beneath this conversation, somehow, he is being scolded. “Know, my son, that when I say this, I say it with a great deal of affection for you. I fear you have been blinded by distance and misguided by your love.”

“Love,” Thanatos repeats flatly.

"You are too close to know you are too hard on him, and you have long been too far to know how he has suffered beneath his father.”

“Running away will not solve his problems.”

“He feels abandoned, Thanatos. You’ve only recently come to know what that is like.”

Thanatos feels heat rise in his face, shamed. Says the words, knowing already that he hardly means them: “He’ll learn soon enough that there is no escape from here, not for long.” Thinks of Zagreus’ head slumping lifelessly against his shoulder, streaks of pale sunlight clinging to his face.

“He knows, child.” Nyx looks at him from the corner of her eye, questioning. “Do you?”

“Of course I know,” Thanatos says, the space between his eyebrows wrinkling. He draws his gaze away so as to not seem harsh. “Death comes for us all.” 

Nyx touches his face, palm cold against his cheek. She tucks a lock of his hair behind his ear, though its cropped length just makes it fall back into his eyes again. Smiles at him in a sad sort of way. “You mistake my meaning,” she says. “You are losing him already.”

  
  


“Go away, Than,” Zagreus snaps. For a moment, Thanatos thinks he’s nocked and drawn Coronacht at him, but the arrow sails past his ear and into a gorgon, well honed. “I didn’t ask for your help,” he starts again, voice tight, narrowly sidestepping the volleys of a dracon trio, “and you’ve made it clear you weren’t offering it in the first place.”

Thanatos waves his scythe, watching as Zagreus wails on skullomat, spawning numbskulls. The chamber flashes green and purple with a rush of air, the ringing of a gong. Zagreus’ arrows lodge into the stone staircase, shot at nothing. The look Zagreus gives him over his shoulder is withering.

“I’ll help you, Zag,” Thanatos says. It comes out harsh and mocking, and he can barely believe it is him saying it. “If you want to leave, then I want you to leave. Maybe it’ll stop you from terrorizing the rest of us.”

“I’m not terrorizing you,” Zagreus says. “This is between me and my father.”

“Lord Hades is taking his frustrations with you out on the rest of us,” Thanatos says hotly. All week he’s been at the receiving end of exceedingly great expectations, righteous lecturing, walking on eggshells in hopes of not being smothered beneath the man's enormous thumb. 

“Can’t you see, then, why I have to do this?” Zagreus’ eyes flash like two coins at the bottom of a well. “He has always treated me that way.”

Thanatos bites his tongue, silenced. Asphodel is stiflingly hot, and he misses the cloying warmth of Tartarus already. He stares at Zagreus, handsome in that straightforward way of his, like knocking loudly on a door. Thanatos breathes in, suddenly dreading that this moment might be the last time he ever sees him. “Up there, you will live as you lived in this world. With difficulty, and with grief.”

“You came all the way here to say this?” Zagreus asks, finally. Equally silenced.

Thanatos knows he should stop, that he shouldn’t be pushing so hard on Zagreus this way, but he can’t. It’s like pulling at the chapped skin around his fingernails; never feels as good as he thinks it will. Even then, Thanatos feels, amid his affections, some strange bitterness. As if there were another person standing between them, covering their eyes, holding them each an arm’s length apart. Though he knows Zagreus is only acting in search of comfort, he begrudges him that comfort. Begrudges the courage to search for it so openly. “I was simply in the area.” 

Zagreus frowns. 

Up the stairwell, a pair of burn-flingers appear in anticipation of Zagreus’ ascent. Thanatos looks at them past the slope of Zagreus’ shoulder, waving his scythe absently so that they are ripped out of existence in moments. The flash of light it creates momentarily paints a Zagreus shaped shadow on the stone floor between them, black as blindness. “Don’t grow used to it.”

  
  


“I don’t know,” Megaera says. Her whip is still stained with Zagreus’ blood, dark red and oxidizing, coiled at her hip. “It's sort of amusing. We didn’t talk for a while. Now we do, in a way.”

Thanatos glares at the bottom of his own glass. “You know he’s been speaking with Sisyphus?”

“Don’t remind me,” Megaera groans. 

“Do you think—do you think he’s planning some way to escape the Underworld completely? And he’s asking Sisyphus for advice on the matter? Who else has cheated death before?”

Megaera gives him a look of poorly concealed agitation. “Thanatos,” she says. “Zagreus barely makes it to the Temple of Styx to begin with. I don’t think you have much cause for concern.”

“But he will make it there again, eventually. And he’ll reach the surface again, eventually.” Thanatos picks at the tiles plating the tabletop with his fingernails. He feels as though he’s gone transparent. Completely see through. “And then what?”

“And then nothing,” Megaera volleys easily. “He’ll end up back here.” Her glittering smile, whetted like a carving knife. “Eventually.”

To that, Thanatos says nothing. Even this cannot assure him.

“Gods,” Megaera says, slicing into the silence. She leans sideways to breach his field of vision. “You’re in a dark mood. I thought you’d be enjoying this sense of victory over Zagreus a bit more. The two of you were always so competitive.”

“I’m so angry, Megaera,” Thanatos says finally. Feels it rushing in him like wind up the mountainside. “I’m so angry at him I can’t stand it.”

Megaera gives him a dead-eyed look. “You’re not angry,” she says. Thanatos glares at her. “Ok, maybe you’re angry.” She waves over a shade with a glass of something Thanatos knows will burn his throat and pushes it towards him. “Whatever Zagreus is after... it must be something important. But we are obligated to stand in his way.”

“I don't want to stand in his way.”

“You might try acting like it,” Megaera says. She makes a face when he scowls indignantly. “I don’t engage much with the gossip, but Zagreus talks a lot when we fight.”

“If I helped him—really helped him, Lord Hades would—”

“I know,” Megaera interrupts. “Better than anyone. Lord Hades is half convinced I’m just letting Zagerus go, and my life isn’t better for it. All I’m saying is you’re acting far more cross than the situation calls for.”

“He makes me forget myself,” Thanatos manages, any real rebuttal dying in his throat. When he manages to meet Megaera’s eye, she is looking at him with a hint of pity.

“He is running straight at you, besides. You’d see it too if you stopped being blind.” She sits back in her chair, legs crossed elegantly. “Unless it’s been Charon rowing his body back down the River Styx this whole time?”

What Thanatos wants to say is that what Zagreus is struggling towards is instead on the other side of him, and he’s simply the collateral, a wall he’s trying to run through, but it sounds childish and paltry, even in his head.

Megaera sighs. “Zagreus has put you in a difficult spot, I'll give you that, but by all accounts what he’ll find eventually isn't freedom. Do what you will, Thanatos, but he'll still be here when there is an end to all this, and so will you. Walk your line carefully if you intend for it to be long.”

“It’s very like the Olympians, isn’t it?” Thanatos says miserably. “For one to drive you to do a thing, another to punish you for doing it.”

Megaera ignores his laments. “Just forgive him." She has half a mind to wallop him the way she often does with Zagreus. "You’re so annoying when you’re like this.”

  
  


A few minutes of respite; that's what Thanatos gets. He spends it staring down the stagnant liquid in the Pool of Styx, elbows on the stone balcony’s railing. He can hear the low crackle of fire in the hearth, the muffled sound of Lord Hades whittling down the ever-growing line of shades approaching his desk. He watches Zagreus emerge from the shallows, distant, scrubbing blood from his eyes and hair. Thanatos hunches further and looks the other direction.

Zagreus is neither subtle nor methodical about his business; Thanatos listens and waits as he’s demoralized by Hypnos, as he argues with his father, pests the house contractor and Orpheus alike. When he enters the West Wing, Achilles calls out to him. Thanatos doesn’t turn, wondering if he should thank the sparse hallway for carrying the echoes of conversation so well or resent it.

“How goes your task? There are less rumors of late, though I don’t know if that’s your father’s doing. I can’t imagine he’d allow whispers of his own defeat to float around for long.”

“Not so well, sir. We haven’t met in battle since the first.”

“Is it Theseus, still?” Achilles asks. “Or Asterius.”

“Theseus. I don’t find the minotaur to be much of a challenge, anymore.”

“Well. Nothing good ever comes out of Athens,” Achilles says, grave. Thanatos cannot tell if he is joking without glimpsing his face. 

“I wouldn’t know,” Zagreus says amicably, and Thanatos knows that he is smiling.

“What I know is that I’ve trained you to be a better warrior than fallen kings, lad,” Achilles replies. “Don’t give up. You’re becoming quite like the shades—always skulking about. You once asked me if I allowed myself to die so that I might see Patroclus again. I am beginning to wonder the same of you.”

“Quite the opposite,” Zagreus starts, and Thanatos lowers his head dutifully, as if it might make the eavesdropping more dignified. “I only hope that Thanatos is not the one who meets me in death. His workload leaves him burdened enough. Despite myself...despite myself, I’d be remiss to add to it.”

“He is very busy, yes,” Achilles says. “But time is no excuse.” 

“I cannot choose him over everything,” Zagreus says. Thanatos glances over his shoulder to catch sight of him, sees Zagreus shaking his head, the movement small and uncommitted. “Not over everything. I wish I could.”

Achilles looks at Zagreus, sad and stern. “But you can still choose him, nonetheless.”

Thanatos faces the Pool of Styx again. Feels the weight of the words about his shoulders like a shroud. 

“If this is love,” Zagreus begins, “I’m not sure I like it any better than hate.”

Thanatos catalogues the sound of a spear’s foot scraping along the stone flooring, as if Achilles might be switching it from one hand to the other to slap Zagreus assuredly on the shoulder. Whatever Achilles says next is drowned out by Cerberus’ great, booming bark mixed atop the scurrying of the shades, and then Zagreus is bidding him goodbye.

Thanatos knows that if he turns now, he’ll be met with Zagreus’ leaden, bi-colored stare, unused to his being here, perhaps embarrassed to be unaware of it until this moment. He can feel it boring into the back of his head at present like a branding iron. The attention makes Thanatos flush, and the quiet approach of Zagreus’ footsteps has him hurriedly reaching for the dying souls awaiting him at the surface.

Zagreus is about to call his name, Thanatos knows it—can feel it like air all careening towards in a low pressure weather system, some rush. War, he reminds himself. There is war about, and soldiers die in dreadful clumps.

“Thanatos,” Zagreus says, hints of desperation.

Thanatos straightens his back, clutches his scythe, and flashes out.

  
  


“You’re a bit late,” Zagreus says dryly. He squints against the short flare of light. Speaking makes blood spill out the corner of his mouth and onto his clavicle, dark red calligraphy. He’s been gored, it seems, damage compounded by the weapon’s removal. 

“Or early,” Thanatos tries. He thought Zagreus would be dead by the time he arrived.

Zagreus laughs, short and pained, then leans his head back against the lip of the fountain. The energy to stand and use its powers has long gone out of him.

“Zagreus—”

Zagreus picks his head up, one corner of his lip tugging up in a half-smile. “Can’t you just,” he starts, gesturing vaguely at Thanatos’ scythe. 

Thanatos adjusts his grip on the helve, discomfited. Watches the blurry, colorless shadow he’s casting between them, not liking the way Zagreus has to look up at him from his place on the mossy stone floor. “No.”

“Just let Charon get me, later, then,” Zagreus says, staring at him. 

“No.”

“What do you want, Than? I said I was sorry—”

“You didn’t.”

“What?”

“You didn’t apologize.”

“You knew I was sorry.”

“That's not the same thing.”

“Well, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

“Then don’t say anything,” Thanatos manages. He shifts uneasily in the peptic silence, wishing, almost, for the clarity of bitter cold he might get were this occurring in the snow. “You’ve put me in an impossible position. You’ve disrupted my work. Created more of it, even. You’ve pitted me against your father, my siblings, my own mother, the _gods_ —”

Zagreus fidgets as if something is prodding at his back. Speaks with uncertainty though he means it to be firm. “Are the gods not just?” 

Thanatos fixes him with a harsh look. “What would become of you, Zagreus, if they were?”

“If you mean to twist my actions,” Zagreus replies, “I’ll speak plainly. Do you hate me, Thanatos? I can’t stand to reason with you. You ask me to stay where I’m not wanted, then push me to go. You assist and hinder me with no sense I can surmise.”

“If it's honesty you want, Zagreus, I’ll be blunt.” Thanatos feels like he is both swearing on some sword and tripping into its blade simulteanously. “What I feel for you could be four-fifths fury and still call itself love.” He likes how the words seem to settle over Zagreus; a set of halteres he once carried now crushing the air out of Zagreus’ lungs, his chest. “Go if you must, stay if you want. I’ll not change.”

“And if I left,” says Zagreus, blood from beneath his ribcage pooling on the floor. “Would you hate me forever?” He nearly smiles as he speaks the words; they lack intention, have proven themselves barren of possibility. 

Thanatos bends at the waist, leaning down until his face is hovering above Zagreus’, the hilt of the scythe in the moss by his thigh. He grabs him by the chin in one hand, wiping the blood aside with his thumb. It streaks sideways, faded pink like a stamp on one end, red as a wax seal at the other. Zagreus blinks at him, slow, breath harsh and neck strained by the angle. The touch is useless. Blood bubbles over his lip again, falling into the crevice between Thanatos’ thumb and forefinger, tracking the path of least resistance down to his wrist. “Yes.”

Zagreus kisses like a man about to hang. Thanatos looks at his mouth when they part, then his own foot between Zagreus’ knees. He wipes the blood again.

“The kiss of Death,” Zagreus says, grave. Even like this, he is funny and kind. He grins, face somehow flushed and clammy at once. Thanatos can sense the life slowly leaching out from him, strangely quiet like the spillway of a dam. “What would the poets say ?”

“Nothing,” says Thanatos, spartan. Nearly winces as something begins pulling like taffy in his chest. “They're all dead, besides.”

Zagreus puts his hand over the one Thanatos has placed on his face. He smells of ash and wet grass, smoke and forged iron. “Then; what would Death say?”

Thanatos crouches, adjusting his grip on the helve, gazes leveled. Briefly, he wonders at it; what might happen if he put Zagreus to the sharpened edge of his blade. The thought leaves his mind as quickly as it had entered, turning Zagreus’ face this way and that in his grip, appraisal. His heart holds each beat for half a minute. “Come find me.”

“What?” laughs Zagreus. 

“After the River Styx takes you back home,” Thanatos says. This love is a knife with no handle. Thanatos is holding it. He keeps holding it. “Come find me when you wake up.”

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> *inflicts psionic damage on myself*


End file.
